Women start to clean streets in the neighborhoods vacated by Al-Shabab fighters in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Aug. 7. Islamist fighters withdrew from almost all their bases in the famine-struck Somali capital on Saturday, the most significant gain for the embattled U.N.-backed government in four years.

Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP

Women clean streets in Mogadishu on Sunday, Aug, 7.

Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP

Somalia Transitional Government soldiers prepare to take positions near a stadium in Mogadishu on Aug. 7, after a brief fight with Al-Shabab fighters.

NBC's Richard Engel sent this report from Mogadishu after Al-Shabab forces pulled out of many of their bases in the city on Saturday:

The rebel group that had been blocking aid deliveries appears to have pulled out of Somalia's capital, giving people hope the violence and famine will subside. NBC's Richard Engel reports.